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Durban’s Adam Robinson is rightly puffed-up about his new pastries book

Melton Mowbray pork pie, left; Victoria sandwich cake, and rusk. (Photos: Roger Jardine)

1 Nov 2024

Four years after his A Book About Bread became a staple in many South African kitchens during lockdown, he’s back with a new book with a different angle, and in which even cannabis brings new meaning to ‘puff pastry’.

Durban “dough guru” Adam Robinson has brought out a second book after his popular A Book About Bread, published in 2020 and in which he shared the secrets of sourdough baking; it’s possible that lockdown helped a little, what with everybody in their kitchens trying to think of something to do. His timing was exquisite.

Four years later (and, as the marketers say, “just in time for Christmas”) comes A Book About Pastries, in which he “gives the French a pasting, unlocks the secrets of croissant-making, pie baking and the art of tarts. Plus tips on ganja edibles.”

The sales pitch is entertaining and pithy: “Admit it, you’ve been there: Spied the forbidden fruit (as it were); fallen into temptation; and come to reckon with remorse. Baker and restaurateur Adam Robinson is referring here to that singular evil of our times: the petrol station pie.

“A munch that is quickly followed by regret, dissatisfaction and the telltale coating of the upper palate that shouts cheap fats. A coating that can only be removed with a very strong cup of tea or a glass of red wine,” he says.

“There is something very seductive about pastry in all its guises,” Robinson adds, and with the new book he is back with more wisdom and wit to help you make your own pies, as well as croissants, danishes, biscuits, puff pastry and more.

It includes all the pâtisserie favourites to be found at Robinson’s bakery-café in the south Durban suburb (and at the new Morningside branch), and a bunch of other delicacies.

Robinson has again teamed up with his near-neighbour in Glenwood, the award-winning photographer and designer Roger Jardine, and the result is a clear and elegantly presented, step-by-step guide to crafting your own pastries. It needs to be.

There are easy recipes for biscuits, cakes and the like, but when all’s said and done, pâtisserie-making is not for sissies, Adam says.

“Take that croissant or pain au chocolat that you like with your coffee so much. Well, the laminated dough that provides its unbeatable light, flaky texture demands folding, rolling and refolding, layer upon alternating layer of butter and dough. More precisely, it’s made from three layers to the power of four (that’s 81 layers of butter).

“So to do it right, you’re going to need to man up – exponentially!”

Adding, and who can blame him, “You’re going to need A Book About Pastries.”

Melton Mowbray pork pie, left; Victoria sandwich cake, and rusk. (Photos: Roger Jardine)

He has a bit of a cheeky nod towards legendary American-Parisian food writer Julia Child, remarking that he is unaware of any South African books on pastries published in recent years that might help novice croissant-makers master the process, and that while Julia Child was very sound on the subject, he “fears the line illustrations in her 1960s and 70s cookbooks can be hard to follow”.

A Book About Pastries purports to deliver on this score. Jardine has shot multiple photographs for the different doughs used in the book. These illuminate all the steps that must be followed, while the text supplies the quantities and know-how needed to avoid pastry pratfalls.

The book divides its recipes into three contrasting techniques and historical phases — yeast-risen, egg-lightened, and chemically-risen (bicarb and baking powder).

Robinson leans more to the older ways here and includes a number of recipes with ingredients that wouldn’t be out of place in one of Mrs Beeton’s Victorian guides.

Purists should rise to the challenge and press their local butcher to assist, he argues. But never fear, if the likes of suet (the fat found around ox kidneys) are not available, Robinson suggests more readily available alternatives so you can get on with baking.

Jardine and food stylist Roxanne Robinson (no relation of the author) really bring the subject to life. And the beautifully lit, delightfully plated and sometimes precariously balanced food presented in the book should tempt you into action.

On the subject of balance there’s more than a passing link between pâtisserie and architecture, the author maintains. In the epigraph, Robinson quotes Antonin Carême, the pre-eminent French chef of the early 19th century: “The fine arts are five in number: music, painting, sculpture, poetry and architecture — of which the principal branch is confectionery.”

It’s perhaps as much a commentary on the artistry and vaulting ambition that goes into fine pastry-making as it is on the occasional conceit of the French.

The book is full of digs at the French and sets the record straight on a number of culinary inventions the French erroneously claim credit for (no, they didn’t invent the croissant; it hails from Austria).

But it’s all light-hearted stuff, very much in the tradition of the old rivalry between France and England. Robinson confesses a grudging jealousy for the Gauls, acknowledging that, certainly in the 19th and 20th century, the French “reigned supreme in the European firmament of the culinary arts”.

A Book About Pastries is not about French pâtisserie although it will certainly teach you to make Madeleines, Brioche Royale and Mille-feuille. It’s about recipes from the broader European tradition, including Robinson’s native England (there are recipes for Lardy Cakes, Melton Mowbray Pork Pies, Chelsea Buns and more).

There are nods to other traditions too. Robinson offers that American favourite, Buttermilk Pancakes (frequently piled high with bacon and maple syrup), a Baked Cheesecake inspired by a 19th century New York recipe and a Brazilian Pão de queijo (a popular cheese bread that put paid to the French claim on choux pastry).

There’s also the South African rusk. The author tells how on his first visit to this country he couldn’t fathom this “tooth-breaking dried bread” but, having learnt the art of dipping, is now a convert.

And finally, towards the close of the book, there’s a page on cooking with ganja — useful tips and tricks to help you adapt some of the book’s recipes to include the famous herb. Robinson says this reflects just how mainstream cannabis edibles have become in Durban.

Thereby giving a new meaning to puff pastry. DM

The book is available from The Glenwood Bakery and its Morningside branch. Or order by e-mailing [email protected] or from Exclusive Books. Price: R295 including VAT.

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